smiileyjen101 wrote:
I wonder why are you making excuses, watering down the quality that 'separates' us from all other species in the same intelligent connectedness, and projects an illusion of superiority?

I would use human arrogance, it's not as if the evidence is hidden from us. If we choose to ignore it, in favour of thinking we are the supreme species and that we have superior rights etc, that is arrogance in the sense of this definition

Eh, I guess. But, I mean, what you call 'human arrogance' to me, is merely a product of our ignorance (aka, conditioning). Yes, it's always available (the awakening to a greater perspective), but so many of us are so caught up in our minds, that we can't see the forest for the trees, and as someone who once was this 'arrogant', I can understand where this ignorance stems from.

Ultimately, arrogance/ignorance is fine in my book. Arrogance stems from ignorance as I see it and perhaps ignorance stems from arrogance at the same time.

I agreed with you before E2B, that it's ignorance, not arrogance, and this is why: The subtitle of my book, We Are All Innocent by Reason of Insanity is The Mechanics of Compassion. If you think someone is arrogant, then you think they are being willfully so. They know better and don't care. For sure they are wrong, bad, etc. Arrogant is a value judgment. If you think someone is being arrogant (or anything else) on purpose, then you can't have compassion for them. Only when you see that all human deeds arise from ignorance and limited knowledge can you have compassion for our mistakes and blunders. The perception that we are the superior species is part of our ignorance, a perfect phase of human evolution, a phase that we are beginning to leave behind.

KathleenBrugger wrote:
I agreed with you before E2B, that it's ignorance, not arrogance, and this is why: The subtitle of my book, We Are All Innocent by Reason of Insanity is The Mechanics of Compassion. If you think someone is arrogant, then you think they are being willfully so. They know better and don't care. For sure they are wrong, bad, etc. Arrogant is a value judgment. If you think someone is being arrogant (or anything else) on purpose, then you can't have compassion for them. Only when you see that all human deeds arise from ignorance and limited knowledge can you have compassion for our mistakes and blunders. The perception that we are the superior species is part of our ignorance, a perfect phase of human evolution, a phase that we are beginning to leave behind.

That was my initial line of reasoning.

Yet, I understand also where Jen is coming from as we can also say that because of our arrogance, we are blinded into ignorance of who we truly are. Because our egos are so strong, we can't see beyond.

However, at the same time, where does arrogance come from? It comes from the limited view of who you think you are in the belief that we are limited, which one can easily call ignorance and therefore, say that we are arrogant because of our ignorance.

What about self? The sense one has of being an enduring evolving individual entity that was born, will live out its life, and die.

On the one hand, this is all self-evidently true: We are all born, we all live, we all die. We all evolve = change, both physically and mentally. Each of us has a unique body and mind: thoughts, emotions, memories. When I slipped in the driveway yesterday and hurt my arm, none of you felt it. Likewise, none of you knows what I'm thinking/feeling right now.

But is that the end of the story? Or is self an illusion, perhaps the grandest illusion of them all?

If you look at the animal world they all would also have their unique differences, but unlike us, they do not spin a story of it. They allow it to be as it is. That is one answer, but I sometime struggle with the buddist concept on anatta, or non-self. Ultimately we really do not have a self. Our existence is because of previous karmas that have manifested to continue the creation. Evolution is a way to sort of climb that latter to a better constructed "self". To be a being of light, a deity, angel, or bodiswatva. But in the end (as I understand the teachings) the self does get extinguished and melts into the ocean of being. We can never grasp with the intellect. But for me, just evolving to a better state is sufficient for this lifetime.

Rach, thank you so much for recommending this book! I just finished it and it is lovely and moving. Ms. Goodenough is a cell biologist and is out front about not believing in God, but this book is a meditation on the beauty and meaning that we can find all around us. Every brief chapter ends with religious-inflected reflections on the deeper meaning of whatever bit of science she had just discussed. Her "emergent principles" include gratitude and reverence. In addition, Ms. Goodenough describes some of the basics of biology--the workings of cells, the splitting off of organisms into species--with such enthusiasm and clarity that you also learn some interesting science.

Rach, thank you so much for recommending this book! I just finished it and it is lovely and moving. Ms. Goodenough is a cell biologist and is out front about not believing in God, but this book is a meditation on the beauty and meaning that we can find all around us. Every brief chapter ends with religious-inflected reflections on the deeper meaning of whatever bit of science she had just discussed. Her "emergent principles" include gratitude and reverence. In addition, Ms. Goodenough describes some of the basics of biology--the workings of cells, the splitting off of organisms into species--with such enthusiasm and clarity that you also learn some interesting science.

Glad you liked. If you're interested in emergence and its role in shaping nature, humans, religion, ethics/morality, check this out:

Rach, thank you so much for recommending this book! I just finished it and it is lovely and moving. Ms. Goodenough is a cell biologist and is out front about not believing in God, but this book is a meditation on the beauty and meaning that we can find all around us. Every brief chapter ends with religious-inflected reflections on the deeper meaning of whatever bit of science she had just discussed. Her "emergent principles" include gratitude and reverence. In addition, Ms. Goodenough describes some of the basics of biology--the workings of cells, the splitting off of organisms into species--with such enthusiasm and clarity that you also learn some interesting science.

Glad you liked. If you're interested in emergence and its role in shaping nature, humans, religion, ethics/morality, check this out:

Thanks! That looks interesting also. At a quick glance I see they discuss reductionism. I loved that in Ms Goodenough's book, where she used the analogy of a symphony to discuss scientific reductionism. Reductionism is like studying the notes on the page of the score. Doing that doesn't mean you forget about or can't enjoy the whole picture--the music--that those notes encode.